Objects that can be placed on a clipboard
must implement the Transferable
interface. This interface defines a number of methods that let an object
describe how it presents itself to clipboard
readers. That sounds complex, but it isn't really; these methods
let a clipboard reader find out what data flavors are available and what
Java types they represent.
The significance of the Transferable
interface is that it provides a way to get information about the object
on the clipboard without knowing what the object actually is. When you
read the clipboard, you don't necessarily know what kind of object
is there. It might be some kind of text string, but it could just as likely
be something bizarre. However, you shouldn't have to care. If you're
looking for a String, you care only that the object exists in a stringFlavor
representation. These methods let you ask the object
what flavors it supports.
For text strings, the data transfer package provides a StringSelection
class that implements Transferable.
At this point, if you want to transfer other kinds of objects, you'll
have to create a class that implements Transferable
yourself. It wouldn't be unreasonable for JavaSoft to provide other
"selection" classes (for example, ImageSelection)
in the future. Methods
- public abstract DataFlavor[] getTransferDataFlavors()
-
The getTransferDataFlavors()
method should return a sorted array of DataFlavors
that you support. The most descriptive flavor should be the first element
in the array and the least descriptive, last. For example, a textual object
would place DataFlavor.plainTextFlavor
last, because it has less information than DataFlavor.stringFlavor
(which includes information like the length of the string) and much less
information than a hypothetical flavor like DataFlavor.richTextFlavor.
- public abstract boolean isDataFlavorSupported(DataFlavor flavor)
-
The isDataFlavorSupported()
method should return true if
the object supports the given flavor
and false otherwise.
- public abstract Object getTransferData(DataFlavor flavor) throws UnsupportedFlavorException, IOException
-
The getTransferData() method
is the most complicated to implement. It should return an instance of the
class representing the data in the given flavor.
If flavor is not supported
by this object, getTransferData()
must throw the UnsupportedFlavorException.
However, this method must be able to return a class for each flavor the
object supports (i.e., each data flavor listed by getTransferDataFlavors()).
The method could throw an IOException
when returning with a Reader
as the representation class. For example, if some data flavor required
you to return a FileReader
and the file doesn't exist, this method might throw an IOException.